Facing Yesterday
by Kiss-This2010
Summary: Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters have somehow broken into Hogwarts. Trying to help protect the castle, Minerva McGonagall is faced with pains she could have never imagined: memories.


"Professor! Death Eaters in the school!" Shouting and banging woke Minerva McGonagall from her dreamless slumber. Grabbing her wand and slipping on her cloak, she rushed to the door. Standing on the other side was a breathless sixth year Hermione Granger. She was pale and sweat dawned her hairline.

"Professor Dumbledore sent me; they are in the dungeons. I have to go wake the other professors. He said for you to hurry. Harry, Ron, Tonks, and Remus are already down there, but we're losing badly!" Hermione took off in a panicked run toward the staircase that led to Professor Flitwick's office. McGonagall headed down to the dungeons. Tearing down the stairs, she met up with the Slytherins who were still clad in their nightgowns looking scared and confused. Stopping one of the perfects, he told her that Dumbledore had sent them to the Great Hall. The only thing the poor boy could tell her was that they were at the furthest point away from where she stood now.

Sending them on their way, McGonagall continued deeper into the dungeons. She silently prayed that she wasn't too late. Listening closely, she could hear noises coming from the darkest corridor in the castle. Good, that meant someone was still fighting. This hall was completely deserted and dusty. She could see where the people before her had ran to the fight. Their footsteps had disturbed the dust.

None of the students ever went down this hall, except for an occasional dare. Years ago, it was rumored, a boy was murdered by a fellow classmate. The boy was said to have been tortured, and if you listened closely, you could still hear the screams. They say it was the Avada Kedavra curse that did him in. The part that scared them the most was that it was a student that performed the illegal curse; something some adults could not muster up the courage or power to do.

McGonagall stopped half way down this hallway, but it wasn't the rumors that stopped her, it was a memory of horror that began to play through her head.

_Running down a darkened hall, she began to tire. She had no idea where he was; she could no longer hear his footsteps. Her cries for help had gone unanswered, as they usually do. Then again, he must have cast a spell on her. She pushed on, confused by the surroundings; as a Gryffindor, she wasn't down in the dungeons much. _

_She wasn't going to let him do that to her again. She had been afraid to tell anyone what had happened, so now she was running for her life. Her face was hot and flushed as the tears streaked down it. She didn't want him to hurt her anymore. Just when she thought she was safe, she heard his voice again._

_"Minerva."_

"Minerva. Minerva, my dear, have you come to join the fight as well" Turning around McGonagall gasped at the owner of the voice. Draped in black, his pale face shone in the dark, his red snake like eyes glared down on her. They weren't the eyes she remembered, the ones he had as a student- a deep dark brown. "This hallway feels…familiar."

"It would to you…" she whispered, finding her voice and her wand.

_"You can't run from me; I will always find you." Tom Riddle grabbed her from behind, dragging her into an empty classroom. Throwing her roughly to the floor, he disarmed her, sending her wand out of reach. "Dear Minerva, did you not have fun last time we played our little game? Surely your screaming meant you enjoyed it." Riddle knelt down beside her, grasping her trembling shoulder and pulling her into a sitting position. Face inches away from his own, he began to taunt her._

_"Where is your protection? I would have thought you would have told the whole world by now. Running to Professor Dumbledore or to your pathetic excuse for a boyfriend, Jeremiah, would be just like you. Where is your precious Jer anyway? I would think the way you were limping he would have noticed something was wrong."_

_"Shut up."_

_"Touched a nerve, didn't I? Don't let that temper get away from you now. That is something I always liked about you Minerva. That and the way your hair fell on your shoulders." As he said this, he ran his fingers through her long dark hair. She tried to pull away, but he brought her even closer, kissing her. She could feel his hot breath on her face as he continued to speak. "I was going to make it fast this time, but since you ran, I'll take my time." He slowly moved his fingers from her hair, down her cheek, onto her neck and finally the buttons of her nightgown. "You are mine, Minerva. No one can save you."_

"_Tom…Don't do this!" she screamed, struggling to keep his hands from crawling up the inside of her leg. _

_"Get away from her!" The door burst open and a third person entered the room, wand outstretched towards the boy and the helpless girl on the floor. _

"There is no one here to save you now. No lover, no friend that follows your every move. You are only the first to die tonight. I told you I would come back for you; fifty years won't make the slightest difference." Voldemort's thin fingers gripped his wand with an excited intensity. In the back of his mind, he remembered the way she had looked lying there beneath him; the way she had screamed when he raped her.

"Go ahead, kill me. See what difference it makes. You'll still die; you'll still loose." McGonagall raised her wand, knowing she couldn't defeat him. All she wanted now was to go down fighting.

"Braver than the last time we met I see. My dear, you will never be a threat to me," he grinned.

Footsteps echoed down the hall running closer. Albus Dumbledore, slowed to a stop at the sight of Voldemort holding a wand at his pale Deputy Headmistress. Harry Potter was a step behind him.

"It is three against one, Tom. Give up." Dumbledore stepped forward, his stern blue eyes bore into Voldemort's red ones.

"I don't think so. Now where was I?" Voldemort turned back at McGonagall staring into her emerald eyes.

"Minerva, close your mind. Close it. Try to fight it." Dumbledore too, was looking into her mind, trying to interfere with the other man's meddling. Voldemort had the power to make you see memories that people tried to hard to forget and by the look on McGonagall's face, he knew what recollections she was seeing.

_The boy ran towards the two on the floor, wand still out. "Get away from her, Tom. I know what you have been doing. The headmaster is on his way. I'll get you for this." _

_"Not if it looks like I had to kill you out of self defense. Who would they believe: a love struck kid or the honorable Head Boy? How about the story you were attacking Ms. McGonagall, and I, the great Tom Riddle, rescued her from your tainted hands." He stood, ignoring the whimpering girl beside him. Both raised their wands for a duel. _

_"Jeremiah, leave, please, I don't want you to get hurt." Through tears, Minerva looked up at the other boy. "Tom, don't hurt him. I'll do anything; just don't do hurt him." She screamed again as he sent a wordless spell at her. _

_"Minerva, I'm not just going to stand back and watch him hurt you like this. You don't deserve that." Jeremiah never took his eyes off of Tom's wand. "I love you and no one should do that to you."_

_"Sorry to break in like this, but your time left on earth is growing shorter. You love her; she loves you, so on and so forth. Now that we've gotten that established, I've got business to take care of," he spat. "And Minerva, you will never escape me. I'll be mine." Before Jeremiah ever had a chance to defend himself, Tom Riddle killed for the first time. Minerva's screams would echo off the walls of the hallway forever. _

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

"Avada Kedavra!" Unlike her memory, the killing curse was not said by Voldemort, but Harry Potter. After the green light faded away, McGonagall could see what was left of a man lying on the ground, dead. After a year of searching for his severed souls and destroying them, Harry had finally destroyed the last one, Lord Voldemort himself. Then all went black.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

McGonagall awoke in the hospital wing two days later. On one side of her sat Dumbledore, reading, his blue eyes sparkling once more. On her left lay Ron Weasley in a clean hospital bed. Hermione was asleep in a chair next to him and Harry was standing at the end of the bed, staring at his friend. Pulling herself into a sitting position, she reached for her glasses.

"Ah, Minerva, nice to see you awake. You have missed much celebrating in your absence." Dumbledore acted as if she had been on vacation.

Looking questioning at Dumbledore, she leaned towards the Headmaster. "What happened?"

"Well, as you know, Death Eaters somehow made their way into the castle, and put up a fair fight. You of course saw Lord Voldemort appear. Mr. Weasley was hit by several spells at once; he will live but we are not sure when he will wake up. By the time Harry and I were able to get loose and assist you, he was already deep into your mind. I have a feeling what you were seeing had to do with what happened in a room in that very hallway?"

"Albus…" This isn't what she wanted to think about right now.

"Jeremiah Garen died a hero's death, Minerva; he died to set you free." Dumbledore had dropped his voice to a whisper, not that Harry was paying attention. "I think that I am correct, but do correct me if I am mistaken. To you, this school is your only tie to the one you loved. An interesting observation I have made over the years is that you show no weaknesses, no break in your protective façade. Also, on a smaller note, I've never seen you with your hair down after that year. Something about the way Tom Riddle liked it down comes to mind as a viable reason, but who would know. You don't get very personal."

McGonagall lay back onto the bed. He was speaking the truth and she could no longer deny it. Sighing she began to talk. "I know you know the real story of what happened that night. Why didn't Dippet listen to you? I was too scared, too shocked to say anything and I'm ashamed to say I couldn't stand up for him. But you knew what happened. Why did Dippet believe Tom?"

"Professor Dippet only saw what he had to. A boy was murdered barely a week before leaving the school for good. The so-called murderer was one of the brightest minds Hogwarts had ever seen. If I told you someone like Ms. Granger murdered another student, would you believe me?" His eyes were clouded over now with the mistakes of his past. Dumbledore could only speculate what happened that night and the nights before it.

"No, I guess not. I just wish..."McGonagall seemed unable to go on. Tears stained her eyes as she thought about the boy she had been so in love with. She remembered the day he promised her his heart; they were to be married the summer they left school. Jeremiah was the only one for her and he was murdered because of their love.

All these years she had been trying to avoid the obvious; he was dead and nothing could bring him back. Everyday she prayed that somehow he would rise from his grave and come back to her. Today was a new day. Tom Riddle was dead and the world was at peace; she would live out the remainder of her life in Jeremiah's memory.

Or she would try her hardest to forget about yesterday.

**A/N: **None of these characters are mine. This takes place in Harry's sixth year but Dumbledore is not dead (and Snape is not bad, so on and so forth). Please review!! Also if you haven't figured it out, the parts in itallics are memories of McGonagall.

**A/N2:** I wrote this story about 2 years ago and I've re-edited it, so I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
